I found out just the other day that there is a legal loophole which means that MPs are allowed to lie to the electorate, and even lie within the houses of parliament...
An obvious example of why this is really dodgy is the various bogus reasons to invade Iraq: they could say whatever they liked without any fear of eventual prosecution.
This is not the case with any other sector of society -- if a corporation lies to its customers in order to sell a product, it is prosecuted. Apparently our votes are less important than our shopping...

Yes and if they stuck to the truth we wouldn't elect any of them anyway i'll show you a nice current example the lie that we have to have Mr Brown as the next PM. The thing is it was Brownite or Clownite supporters who started that rumour campaign a year ago running through the papers = we accept it as fact. Yes Mr Brown has always had his eye on the PM position yet the thing is he's as bad as Blair and i'm still investigating this at the moment but there is no law saying we have to accept him as leader.

We voted Tony Blair into office if he leaves cause well we don't want him there we the people should be able to elect the new leader not just roll over and accept what we are given as us Brits usually do to the MP's.

It's just lie after lie and watching politicians on tv they never answer the question never i swear politics is the best game to get into if you want an easy life and you have no qualms about lying cause quite frankly who cares about the people or peasents

I'd love to hear more about this "legal loophole", don't be such a tease.

As for Gordon Brown?
'We' didn't elect Tony Blair as PM.
'We' the people never have directly elected a PM.
'We' elected a majority of Labour MPs.
The Labour party leader as leader of the majority of MPs in the HOC is appointed by the Queen as PM.

It's just fundamental misunderstanding after fundamental misunderstanding of our (long established) Gov proceedures, eh?

Ok, I'll stop teasing you! My politics obsessed friend introduced me to the following website the other day:

mo-truth.blogspot.com...

They have created a law entitled the 'Misrepresentation of the People act' to fill the gap in the law and they are currently trying to find an MP who'll help them get it passed through parliament. They've interviewed lots of MPs (and the Lord Chancellor) and post up the footage on the website...it sounds like a really interesting campaign from what I can see. It says on the site that there is a parliamentary committee on Standards in Public Life and that they have to report and make recommendations to the PM who can then decide whether or not to do anything .....convenient.

Committee: We think you've manipulated the intelligence to fit your policies
PM: Pardon?
Committee:You heard...
PM: F**k off
Committee:Um, ok

The trouble with these kinds of 'make them tell the whole truth' ideals is that it has to run into practical political reality.

Sometimes 'the truth' isn't really the truth at all but a subjective judgement often made on the basis of a political POV.

I also think there is a slight confusion here, Ministers are not allowed to lie to Parliament.
They may have made a statement to Parliament based on their being mis-informed (and in that case must come to Parliament to explain themsleves and apologise) but it is not true to say that Gov Ministers can just outright 'lie' to Parliament, that could go as far as to be a resigning matter.

I have to say I find you characterisation of the Standards in Public Life committee (and it's effect/'teeth') very wide of the mark.

No Gov is probably ever going to meet an 'absolutist' standard of 'truth', they will all wish to present their case in the best possible light and on their own terms (which is all 'spin' is afterall).

But it is also still undeniable that the standards expected of MPs and Ministers now - thanks to the changes made by this Gov - are more demanding than they have ever been and that publis access to information is also greater than it has ever been.


[edit on 28-3-2007 by sminkeypinkey]

True i apologise what i meant was we elected him as the Labour candidate for prime minister.

I think you might be looking for parliamentary privilage. This enables MPs (not sure if this applies to the Lords) to say almost anything. That is why, if you listen to the Commons and a MP says something pushing the envelope, you may hear other MPs demanding the MP to say the same thing outside of the chamber.

I believe the same applies in a court of Law.

Have none of us ever lied? Yet we expect our leaders to be whiter than white. Of course they lie. They are human or so we hope.